Keisha Coleman doesn’t usually spend her afternoons at home watching television. But on one recent day, it was the right place at the right time.

  The attorney with McGuireWoods’s Atlanta office was recovering from a minor automobile accident earlier in the day when she happened to see the WSB-TV report on Austin Road Middle School honor student Christian Philon, who had unwittingly used a counterfeit $20 bill in the school lunchroom and was facing severe disciplinary action.

  “It just made me mad,” said Coleman, herself a parent and former teacher.

  Christian’s parents, who gave him the money, maintained that they had no idea it was fake. Coleman knew from watching the news report that they were sincere, and she was not pleased with how the Henry County School System’s zero-tolerance policy was being applied so swiftly.

  After reaching out to WSB-TV reporter Tom Regan and asking him to let the family know she was available to work for them pro bono on this case, she did not hear from anyone for several days, which led her to believe that reason prevailed and everything would be all right. The district had announced January 18 that Christian’s 10-day suspension was being overturned by executive order of Superintendent Mary Elizabeth Davis.

  But Coleman got a call late the following Friday from Christian’s mother with the news that the appeal hearing in which she was seeking to have the incident removed from his record was coming up Monday and she couldn’t get it delayed. Coleman was able to get the hearing pushed back to Wednesday, and she prepared a brief in Christian’s defense, which was also sent to the Times.

  Here are her opening remarks to the Board of Education:

  “If you take all of the money out of your wallet, how confident are you that every piece is genuine? Can you be 100 percent certain? Do you own a counterfeit-detector pen? Do you mark each bill that comes into your possession to verify its authenticity? Now imagine that you unknowingly try to use a $20 counterfeit bill and are ARRESTED.”

  Coleman went on to point out that such an arrest, and the subsequent public humiliation, would be forbidden under state and federal law – but the same thing essentially happened to Christian. She went on to state that the board was “legally and morally bound to do the right thing, reverse the hearing officer’s decision, and remove this incident from [his] record.”

  In her brief’s five subsequent pages, Coleman argued that the district’s zero-tolerance policy regarding counterfeit money is in direct violation of state law for several reasons: it does not improve student learning; it is not age-appropriate; the discipline is out of line with the student’s behavior; and the hearing officer failed to consider the student’s exemplary record and other factors.

  Coleman’s mission was accomplished. The school board ruled with virtually no comment at the January 30 appeal hearing to remove the incident from Christian’s record. (The Times reached out to the district’s central office February 1 for a comment and got no response.) Although a post on the district’s Facebook page January 18 announced the reversal of the suspension, there was no public acknowledgement of the January 30 decision.

  The final ruling was good news for the Philon family, but Coleman said an apology would have been appropriate. “They could have at least said something to this student while he was right there in the room with them,” she noted.

  Coleman added that she hoped a complete review of the district’s zero-tolerance policies would be forthcoming. The district’s January 18 statement indicated that Davis “has directed the immediate examination of the entire Code of Conduct and the process for assigning consequences for student infractions.”

  The key to this case, and so many others like it that are never reported, is the level of parent involvement, Coleman said. The vast majority of parents do not have the financial resources to retain legal counsel for these cases, and many feel that the disciplinary hearings are simply a formality in which the penalties are rubber-stamped. But Christian’s mom and dad didn’t stop working on his behalf.   “He has exceptional parents,” said Coleman. “They were very involved in advocating for him but were also very respectful through the entire process.”